Web 2.0 movement has a dramatic impact to ignite the Library 2.0 movement to revolutionise libraries and the LIS profession (Casey, 2005). Library 2.0 is a change in the “interaction between users and libraries in a new culture of participation catalysed by social web technologies” (Holmberg et al., 2009). In library 2.0, a successful librarian should combine the roles as an educator, collaborator, advocator and IT specialist to serve users.
For the broad range of duties, librarians 2.0 should be a generalist who is broadly educated with a wide range of knowledge, so that they have the ability, insight and knowledge to advocate a dynamic information profession (Abram, 2005), catalyse management innovation and foster change (Peltier-Davis, 2009) as an advocator. They should also be eager to learn constantly and quickly and be courageous to take risks and work under pressure.
As an educator, they should be creative and communicative to embrace the role of teaching and develop a strategy guide for helping users find information, gather knowledge and create content. They need to plan user-centered technology, services, materials and outreach activities and marketing approaches.
Most importantly, librarians 2.0 need to have sufficient IT skills and knowledge to master the Web 2.0 environment and social media tools. Librarians 2.0 should be able to use Creative Commons and manage social media contents which include blog posts, photos, videos, podcasts and screen casts. In a library 2.0, librarians must be able to deliver and complement libraries’ reading activities with various media-writing, photography, audio, and video elements (King, 2007).
As a collaborator, IT capacity is also essential for librarians 2.0 to be familiar with Web 2.0 tools in order to nurture a climate for collaboration with other thriving information communities to build connections online with remote users and comrades. Librarians 2.0 should be able to use Instant Messaging to meet users in their space online, build Weblogs and wikis as resources to further the mission of the library, and mashes up content via APIs to build useful Web sites.
References
Abram, S. (2005). Web 2.0, huh?! Library 2.0, librarian 2.0. Information Outlook, 9(12), 44–46.
Casey, M. (2005, September 26). Librarians Without Borders. LibraryCrunch blog. http://www.librarycrunch.com/2005/09/librarians_without_borders.html
Holmberg, K., Huvila, I., Kronqvist-Berg, M. & Widen-Wulff, G. (2009). What is Library 2.0? Journal of Documentation, 65(4), 668–681.
Peltier-Davis, C. (2009). Web 2.0, Library 2.0, library user 2.0, librarian 2.0: Innovative services for sustainable libraries. Computers in Libraries, 29(10), 16–21.
King, D. L. (2007). Basic competencies of a 2.0 librarian. David Lee King. http://www.davidleeking.com/2007/07/11/basic-competencies-of-a-20-librarian-take-2